35 Druid, Charm or Quad?

[moignus]

So I just hit 35 after quadding a level. I enjoyed quadding, however, the downtime was tremendous which is excepted I imagine. :)

I spent about a day porting so I have around 190 wisdom after buying some sweet pieces of gear. I'm saving up for Golden Efreeti Boots which will put me around 200-202.

I was wondering in terms of speed which is fastest? Charm kiting or Quadding. I notice a lot of people say that you can have no downtime when you charm which makes it faster overall.

The problem I have is when I charm, they break constantly. This causes me to be constantly using mana. Plus sometimes when I charm it won't be an even fight. I've had fights were my pet will take 90% of the damage and the other mob still has over 75% hp.

I'm not trying to rush my way to 60 or anything, but I would rather play more and be active. Compared to quadding where I quad and then med for 4-6 minutes while watching Netflix on my second monitor. I'd like to save quadding for when I want to relax and watch some T.V, but I can also progress my character a bit.

Now my only experience with charm kiting and quadding are super limited.
I'm currently quadding snow cougars in ice-clad. I only charm kited gorge hounds in Eastern Karana for a bit and then went straight to Highkeep for 24-34.

Now I did the quest where you can get the cougar sleeves that have +3 WIS on them.
I charmed walruses for the quest a bit, but they kept breaking and the fights were uneven. I imagine since the walruses are various levels I was making a lower level fight a higher level while not realizing. Any answers to my questions would be super helpful.

Sorry for the long post, I'm new to Everquest never played prior. P1999 is my first experience with it, and I'm loving it so far. I'm only confused a little, and I imagine it's for no reason.

[Nagoya]

Not an actual answer to your question, but I would recommend a quick port to WC (and/or run to EC) and check if you have either an Enchanter 54+ or a Druid 60, and ask/tip for a Clarity 2 or a Protection of the Glade, respectively. Mana regeneration is indeed the biggest weak spot for a druid, and these two buffs will save you considerable time medding on your butt. I have also tipped a Necromancer for a couple of Twitch more often than I thought possible, or asked a bard of I could group quickly to get mana regen song while I med.

As for your actual question, on Nagoya I grouped almost exclusively, so I didn't do either extensively.

However I am levelling a new druid right now, she is 19 and I will try both as well when I'm there. I'll let you know what I find!

[Qtip]

Snare mob, charm, park. Grab another mob, snare. Pull to pet. Let them beat each other up. Break charm, use elder spiritist arms and clicky both and go grab another pet and mob while the dot kills them both.

[moignus]

Not an actual answer to your question, but I would recommend a quick port to WC (and/or run to EC) and check if you have either an Enchanter 54+ or a Druid 60, and ask/tip for a Clarity 2 or a Protection of the Glade, respectively.

I have been doing that, and boy does it help a lot. I'm bound in EC Tunnel, and I just port to Iceclad and immediately can kill the surrounding mobs for EXP.

[moignus]

Snare mob, charm, park. Grab another mob, snare. Pull to pet. Let them beat each other up. Break charm, use elder spiritist arms and clicky both and go grab another pet and mob while the dot kills them both.


Can't do that yet, I'm only level 36 now. Although later that sounds good, but that's also the levels I get lumi staff. Wouldn't quadding with that be faster then charming with the vambraces?

[Wetdawg]

I would suggest to quad the gnolls outside of splitpaw, they drop lore scrolls which can be turned in at qeynos for 11% per scroll until level 40 or so. Really good exp if you bind yourself in Qeynos and gate once you have 2 or 3 scrolls.

If that's camped check out the snow cougars in IC, you can quad them or charm + fearkite.

Pikn has a nice series of druid quad videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pgiEbS51f8&t=1218s

[Nashlyenin]

Hey, I charm killed solo majority of the time to lvl 60.
1) Try to save all your plat for a goblin gazughi ring, you can use it to drop charm instantly.

2) Charm kill in level appropriate zones, 35 is prolly too low for EW walrus'. At 35 you can go practice on the alligators in CT, they will still give good exp, and since 35 is a hell level you will get plenty experience for charm killing.

3) If your pet is winning, spam sit. If your pet is loosing, you can (a) ds your pet or use your low level fear on the target. It doesn't last very long and with the mob snared it shouldn't walk away too far.
*protip once your pet and the target are below 20%, when you break charm just fear 1 and both will go into flee mode, and since they are both snared they will just sit there.

Have your root be in the first gem slot, get a telescope to reduce GCD. This will allow you to fire off roots on multiple mobs/ resists.

Example tactic for breaking gators in CT.

Wait for pather to stand near the 2 static gators, cast harmony. Pull 1 with snare, clicky telescope and root or clicky neck to root. Pull 2nd one with snare and try to root it so they are near melee range. Charm and let the 2 fight, get up occasionally to re root target, ( you dont want both of them running at you if charm breaks randomly).

Now once they are both low, target yourself then your pet then yourself. So basically F1 3 times or I changed mine to +, invis yourself/ hide to break charm, then immediately click on your (cycle from previous target and yourself key), I made it (-). This will target your pet without you having to fumble around trying to retarget it and fire off a root or a fear, if your pet is in flee mode range. Then nuke down your target.

Root necklace is nice because I have been caught oom at the end and I just spammed it to lock the mob in place while doing a little dmg to finish it off.

I personally did 44-60 in Kedge keep, but that was with the high zem. They got rid of it a while back so once you get to 46 its probably a better option to just buy a lumi staff and quad 46-52. But you can start to charm kill again at 54 in Perma bear pits.

[Qtip]

Can't do that yet, I'm only level 36 now. Although later that sounds good, but that's also the levels I get lumi staff. Wouldn't quadding with that be faster then charming with the vambraces?

Thought I seen 46. Lumi like a jbb(shm clicky bracer) is useful for a few levels. Into the mid 50s mobs hp jumps a ton and they're less useful. Practice charm now.

[loramin]

I leveled my Druid to 44 with animal charming, and then from 44 to 47 with quad kiting. In my opinion animal charming is faster if you do it right (which includes things like pulling mobs with almost equal levels, or pitting a second low blue against a 50% HP high blue left-over from the previous fight) ... but only barely.
Quad kiting gives you almost as much plus with quad kiting you get to take long med breaks.

Really they are close enough that you should just do whichever style appeals to you more.

[Swish2]

If you need to afk a lot, I'd recommend spectres in Oasis / Feerott - just a couple of dots and a nuke here and there...and you can sit again.

Not fast XP but steady.

[Falditin]

Think charming is the way to go till about 46.

Charming is a lot more mana efficient. If the level of the mobs are close to each other you should be able to kill the 2 mobs with 15-20% of your mana. Rough estimate that is 10 mobs for your entire mana pool versus 4 mobs on quad.

If you are having problems with charm breaking then the mobs your charming are too high for you. There is a level range for the blue con, high blues your charm will constantly break, blues towards the lower end to mid range you shouldnt have any problems holding charm for the duration of the fight.

This is a perfect time to work on your charm kiting skills, when youre in your late 50s you be spending a lot of time in either the permafrost pits or kedge.

[Lertze]

If you are having problems with charm breaking then the mobs your charming are too high for you. There is a level range for the blue con, high blues your charm will constantly break, blues towards the lower end to mid range you shouldnt have any problems holding charm for the duration of the fight.

Is there any reliable way to separate high blues from mid-low ones? I'm level 27 and I don't like charm kiting at all. It just seems like a crapshoot on the range of blue that I'm charming, so quite often my charm breaks a lot which usually means I get my face mashed in for a bit. I know snaring helps, but my snare doesn't last the duration of the fight yet.

[Jimjam]

The /con message has a higher detail of resolution than color. Read those con messages.

[Pezy]

Is there any reliable way to separate high blues from mid-low ones? I'm level 27 and I don't like charm kiting at all. It just seems like a crapshoot on the range of blue that I'm charming, so quite often my charm breaks a lot which usually means I get my face mashed in for a bit. I know snaring helps, but my snare doesn't last the duration of the fight yet.

Make sure you're using Ensnare instead of Snare. It lasts 7 minutes when you get it at 29 (and up to 15 minutes as you level).

[Ravager]

35-40 quadding pirates in Firiona Vie is pretty decent if I remember right. They're rogues, so they're pretty squishy and will have less downtime than quadding other things of the same level. Plus you can make some decent plat from the fine steel they drop as well as porting people out of FV.

[Tethler]

35-40 quadding pirates in Firiona Vie is pretty decent if I remember right. They're rogues, so they're pretty squishy and will have less downtime than quadding other things of the same level. Plus you can make some decent plat from the fine steel they drop as well as porting people out of FV.

Yes, quadding pirates was really fast xp when I did it, provided there isn't a bard there PLing someone.

[kebas239]

I primarily quadded on my druid until I was 55+ and in the perma pits (basically had no viable options to quad anymore).

That said, from a technical standpoint, charming would be more mana efficient than quadding and could get you leveled faster assuming that the area you're hunting in has an abundant number of animal mobs. But remember, you would need to be more re-active in your play style to handle random charm breaks as well as knowing when to break the charm yourself to kill the pet + other mob and claim all the xp.

Quadding is a bit more reliable (albeit slower) and lets you play in spurts, then AFK if you need.

EDIT - As for the concern with "hp matching" the mobs, all you can really do is pick ones around the same level and do whatever you can to keep them sort of close. Unfortunately, you don't have access to a slow spell to do this easily but there may be some other ways that could work that I'm just not thinking of.

[Tethler]

EDIT - As for the concern with "hp matching" the mobs, all you can really do is pick ones around the same level and do whatever you can to keep them sort of close. Unfortunately, you don't have access to a slow spell to do this easily but there may be some other ways that could work that I'm just not thinking of.

If my pet is losing, I either give it thorns, or dot the other mob. If my pet is winning, I'll switch to the other as a pet when charm breaks and use thorns and/or dot to even things out.